Do you believe that IN GENERAL, fighters from previous eras were superior?

Do you?

 

No. The sport is much more worldwide now, which means bigger talent pools and fans always have on their rose tinted glasses when viewing fighters from the past. Of course, there are great fighters from every era but GENERALLY no.

 

Yeah, this is a weak era of boxing. Fighters today are clearly technically inferior to those from past eras.

 

Absolutely. Throw as much reasoning as you want either way, for me it all comes down to the footage, which clearly shows the superiority of the top fighters from the 80's, 70's, 60's, etc. Boxing is in a slump.

 

We really should stop watching boxing.

It's such a pathetic sport that even clowns from 100 years ago are considered better fighters than today's elite

In no other sport happens something similar

Imagine a dude seriously arguing that the swimming champion from 1915 would beat Michael Pelps, that a sprinter from the 20's would outrun Usain Bolt, that a NFL superstar team from the 70's would squash any top team of today

People would point at said dude and laugh

But in boxing we have all this unexplainable rose tinted glasses crap where Jess Willard is better than both Klitschkos, Marciano would floor any HW in history and Harry Greb is #2 GOAT, despite the fact that nobody has even seen this mfer actually fighting

I've seen enough of the old dinosaurs footage to be vastly unimpressed by them. All sports evolve and so do all athletes, and modern athletes are the repository of all the knowledge, techniques, training methods, etc, developed since the beginning of the sport and can benefit from that in ways the old fighters couldn't.

and while I agree that a few exceptionally gifted guys from the past could be competitive in many eras, or even today, those guys are the exception and not the rule.

the rule is past greats > current chumps

but Top athletes of today > top athletes of the past

So no, in general the fighters from previous eras were inferior as fighters/athletes and become more and more inferior the further you go back in time.

 

Yeah, the obese bums that make up 90+% of today's HW division are clearly better "athletes" and could easily go a hard 15 rounds even though most of them struggle to go 12 while throwing like 20 punches per round. :nut

 

I said TOP athletes, and im not talking about the division rankings, Im talking about the BEST on each division. Yes. the best would outwork and practically out-everything the old dinosaurs.

 

Good post. Lots of old footage from eras long past is shocking. Simply woeful technique.

 

The top guys today could compete with anybody. You can give plenty of credit to the ATGs without trashing the current generation.

Hating on modern boxing is a weird trend all throughout the sports history. It's probably because the sport relies solely on stars and hype and it's easy to reminisce about the good old days. There are less top American fighters but participation levels world wide are at an all time high.

 

I wouldn't say either are better, depends from fighter to fighter I don't believe there is a "rule" for this.

 

No

 

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aJkiwu_04dw"]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aJkiwu_04dw[/ame]
What a technical wonder he is..

 

He looks better in the ring. Watch his fight footage, he's actually really good.

 

I know.. But you can't generalise like people are trying to do in this thread..
A believe that the fabolous 4 from the 80s would for the most part have their way the current Welter, LHM and Middle divisions.. But i think the SMWs from the 90s would have a tough challenge against prime Kessler, Calzaghe, Froch, Ward and Bute..

 

I'm not qualified enough to give a solid, reliable answer, as I don't know much about past fighters. But, from the few clips I've seen, I honestly don't see anything in them which suggest that they, in general, are that better than modern fighters. With better training techniques, conditioning, experience picked up along the way, I find it difficult to believe today's best wouldn't be able to hold their own against yesterday's.

The only major difference that speaks out to me, are the mentalities. When we're speaking about that, then yes, old-school fighters are far superior.

But as mentioned, I probably need to look at more footage before opening my mouth.